Fire and Sword. Harry Sidebottom
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Название: Fire and Sword
Автор: Harry Sidebottom
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780007499946
isbn:
The runner was sent to recall the outpost from the far end of the bridge.
Menophilus spotted a flash of movement in the treeline on the opposite shore. The enemy had rallied fast, much faster than he had expected. There was not a moment to lose. The bridge must be destroyed before it could be retaken.
The men of the piquet ran past, boots drumming on the woodwork. Menophilus told the axemen to turn their attentions to the ropes securing the barge to its neighbour. They hefted their blades. He hesitated, trying to think of something to say. Nothing came to him. He turned, and ran after the others, towards safety.
Looking back from the bank, the scene was set out like some grand spectacle in the Flavian Amphitheatre: the dark green hills beyond, the pale line of the pontoon crossing the roiling waters of the river. There were two ropes at the prow of the barge, two at the stern. The men worked in pairs, legs braced, blades flashing in the sun.
Now there was a new audience: a Century of enemy legionaries on the far bank. Their Centurion, marked out by his bronze helmet with its jaunty transverse crest, was belabouring them with the vine stick of his office. Again and again he brought it down on their backs, trying to force them to move out onto the bridge. Enduring his blows and imprecations, they would not budge.
A crack echoed above the noise of the river. A rope at the prow of the barge whipped back, dashed one of the axemen to the decking. The rope next to it parted. Another man went down. With an awful inevitability, the pontoon began to give, bowing downstream. The men on their feet dropped their axes, started to run back towards Menophilus and safety. Two loud reports, and the ropes at the stern snapped. The bridge parted, the force of the floodwater forcing its sides apart.
The decking heaved and swayed under the feet of the running men. They staggered, reeling side to side, as if drunk. One went sprawling. Green water spumed up between the planks. Fifty paces to go. Behind them, a barge ripped free, ropes hissing murderously through the air. Then a second, and a third. Thirty paces. The men lurched, fell to their knees, scrabbled forward. Then the walkway in front of them splintered and tipped, and the whole pontoon came apart, unstitched along its entire length.
The heavy barges spun, ramming into each other, crushing everything in between. All of Menophilus’ men were gone, except two. In the chaos of wreckage, they clung to an upright barge. Their shouts could be heard above the din. The barge swung out into midstream, turned side on to the torrent. Slowly, very slowly, it tilted, and overturned. And there was no more shouting.
‘The men are ready, the prisoners secured.’ Adiutor’s voice was flat, betraying no emotion or criticism.
‘Have the men form column of march.’
‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’
Menophilus looked out at the Aesontius, at its waters as they swept the debris downstream, and he felt the relentless, remorseless pounding of guilt. It was like the river; it never stopped.
Rome
The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Eight Days before the Ides of April, AD238
The eunuchs were dancing in the Forum. It was a bad omen. Wailing, clashing cymbals, they capered away from the armed guard. The eunuchs were everywhere, the streets full of their cacophony. It was the third day of the festival of Magna Mater. The courts were closed, and the Senate should not convene. Yet there were few days in April without one festival or another. Even an Asiatic deity, an immigrant like Cybele, accepted that in an emergency the Res Publica took precedence. And it was the anniversary of Caesar defeating the Numidians; that, at least, was auspicious.
Pupienus walked under the Arch of Septimius Severus. In the crowded reliefs above his head, the Emperor made a speech, his troops took cities, battering rams shook walls, barbarians surrendered, and gods looked on in approval. The scenes of overwhelming triumph were timeless, all the more powerful for being divorced from narrative. Severus had been a fine Emperor; certainly stern, and a terror to his enemies at home and abroad. Pupienus owed much to Severus, and would keep his example in mind.
As Pupienus and his entourage ascended, their progress was hindered by gangs of plebs drifting up to the Capitol. Unlike the eunuchs, the sordid plebs did not leap aside. Some stood, with dumb insolence, until the guards shoved them out of the way. As Pupienus passed, the plebs – men and women – regarded him with silent hostility. Pupienus knew they thought him harsh, blamed him for the deaths in the Temple of Venus and Rome the previous year. The plebs were fools. There had been only a few killed. As Prefect of the City, he had ordered the Urban Cohorts to use cudgels, not their swords. He had left the side gates clear for the rioters to escape. If it had not been for him, the Praetorians would have been sent in, and massacred everyone in the holy precinct. As it was, his clemency had cost him his office. Maximinus had dismissed him for insufficient zeal in his duties. Now he was Prefect of the City again, and, if the gods were kind, by dusk he would be something greater. He put the plebs out of his thoughts. They were not worth considering.
They came out onto the summit of the Capitol by the altar of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Behind it loomed the huge temple of Rome’s patron deity. The gilded doors and roof of the home of the Best and Greatest god glittered in the sun.
There were more of the plebs up here. Off to one side, they clustered around the statue of Tiberius Gracchus, the long-dead demagogue and would-be tyrant they regarded as their martyred champion. It had been erected on the spot where he had been beaten to death by patriotic Senators intent on saving the Res Publica. The plebs did not concern Pupienus. Let them wait outside the doors, while their betters decided the fate of the empire.
Pupienus walked up the steps, through the tall columns, and, leaving his bodyguards at the doors, into the inner sanctum. The cella was tall and dark. Already there were several hundred Senators murmuring on the ranks of benches set out along the sides. Looking neither left nor right, Pupienus walked the length of the chamber, and stopped before the statue of Jupiter. At a small, portable altar, he made a libation of wine, and offered a pinch of incense into the fire. Jupiter – seated, massive, and chryselephantine – gazed over Pupienus’ head at the smoke coiling up to the ceiling.
Piety satisfied, Pupienus acknowledged the presiding Consul, Licinius Rufinus. He took his place on the front bench in the midst of his supporters. On either side were Praetextatus and Tineius Sacerdos; both also ex-Consuls and fellow members of the Board of Twenty. Their combined friends and relatives were ranked about them.
The opposite benches contained Balbinus, and his repellent coterie of patricians. Prominent among them was Rufinianus. It was contemptible, and utterly predictable, that Rufinianus, also one of the Twenty, had abandoned his assigned post defending the passes over the Apennines, and scurried back to Rome to see what personal advantage he could secure.
Pupienus lifted his eyes, let them wander over the golden eagles, whose wings supported the roof. It was in the lap of the gods. He had done all that he could. Balbinus was bought and paid for. His cruel, sensuous mouth had slobbered at the offer. Undoubtedly it would not stop him reneging on his word, if his greed spotted something yet more tempting on the table. The avarice and vanity of the other patricians had been accommodated; not that they were any more to be relied upon.
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